Singing with Crows explores the intersections of religion with politics and with our common life.

Saturday, August 27, 2016

Florence Foster Jenkins

Florence Foster Jenkins.She was a wealthy heiress, New York
socialite, avid patron of the musical arts … and possessed the most
excruciatingly unmusical singing voice ever heard on the stage of Carnegie
Hall.I first heard that voice around
1960, coming from the grooves of a 78 rpm record owned by my violin
teacher.By that time, less than twenty
years after her death, her story was already laden with legend and myth.

The recordings were played for comedy
value.The picture that emerged of the
singer was that of a deluded coloratura wannabe, rich enough to buy her way
into a recording studio and ultimately into Carnegie Hall.But it is perhaps precisely because she was
so stupendously awful that interest in her has never waned.Eight of the nine songs that she recorded in
the Melotone Studio, including the one that I heard at my teacher’s home, were
released on vinyl in 1962 and later on CD.Several of those songs are now available on YouTube.

A number of dramatizations of her
story have appeared on stage.“Glorious,”
by the British playwright Peter Quilter, was produced at the Fulton Opera House, Lancaster, PA,
in 2008 to much acclaim.The French film
“Marguerite,” released earlier this year, is based loosely on Jenkins’ singing
career.Now comes Meryl Streep’s
stunning portrayal in “Florence Foster Jenkins,” which I saw last Thursday at
Penn Cinema.

The new film depicts the person
behind the voice, revealing a far more complex and nuanced character than the
caricature of legend.Streep is
magnificent in capturing both Jenkins’ indomitable will and her physical
fragility.When in one scene an
examining doctor marvels that she has lived so long, her companion replies that
she has lived for music.

For dramatic purposes, the film
compresses events of the final decade of her life into what appears to be just
a few months and introduces a few purely fictional secondary characters.But within the bounds of biography as popular
entertainment, it is more than reasonably accurate to the real-life story, as the article on History vs. Hollywood details.

One of the enduring myths, only
authoritatively debunked within the recent past, was that Edwin McArthur, the
renowned accompanist of such operatic luminaries as Kirsten Flagstad and later
conductor of the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, was Madame Jenkins’ accompanist
on the recordings under the pseudonym of Cosmé McMoon. It is now clear that
they were two separate individuals. The movie confirms the debunking, making
McMoon a central character and not even mentioning McArthur, who did accompany
Jenkins’ recitals for a period of about six years earlier in her career but was
fired by her for grimacing at the audience in response to her vocal errors.

Research by the Moravian Archives in
Bethlehem has uncovered a Moravian connection.Florence Foster, at the age of 13, entered the Moravian Seminary for
Young Ladies in September 1881.(Note:
This was a girls’ boarding school equivalent to Linden Hall in Lititz, PA, and
one of the predecessors of the present-day Moravian Academy.The word “seminary” in this context does not
indicate theological education.)On
December 20 of that year she participated in a Musical Entertainment,
performing in the vocal duet “Two Merry Alpine Maids.”She appears to have withdrawn before the end
of the school year.Her name last
appears on the class roster in March 1882.The school ledger book records that during her time of study she spent more
than $100 on sheet music and lessons.

There is no question that Lady
Florence displayed considerable musical talent in her youth.She was acclaimed as a child prodigy on the
piano, and at age eight played at the White House for President Rutherford B.
Hayes.It is most likely that
neurological damage due to both disease and the treatment of it made it
impossible for her to hear herself sing.Thanks to the trust fund provided in her father’s will and the
connivance of her large circle of friends, she was able to live in “a world of
her own,” as the 2008 documentary by Donald Collup put it.

The ending of the film shows the
audience a bit of what that world must have been like for Jenkins.It’s a beautiful movie.Go see it.Take Kleenex.

About Me

My interest in religions of the world was awakened by early reading of Greek, Roman, and Norse mythology; nurtured by classes in literature, comparative religion, and cultural anthropology at Susquehanna University; and expanded and refined during the decade that I spent earning an MAR at Lancaster Theological Seminary. While standing firmly in the progressive Protestantism of the present-day Moravian Church, I welcome opportunities for ecumenical and interfaith interaction.
My commitment to peacemaking and justice advocacy has guided my entire adulthood. My love of music and participation in music-making are life-long passions.
Most of the articles posted here were published originally in my regular column "Musings" for our local newspaper.